Rose-tinted spectacles are one thing:
looking at the world through
dark prescription lenses
and a perspex motorcycle visor
is quite another.

Wherever the summer sun
falls on leaves and
the breeze moves them,
they shine with iridescent
paua greens blues purples pinks,
and even the tops
of black plastic water tanks
and the backs of Friesian cows
shine like polished pounamu

Saturday, January 13, 2018

Apparently, if you have a stroke, the most likely time for you to have another is in the month following. I've made it through that month alive. I am fighting the 'I'm tired', and the fear of what might happen every moment - but I am also very aware that 'there is only now'. I might have another stroke and die before I finish writing this or I might live for another 18 years without having another, before dying of something totally unrelated, like my father did. I've discovered how amazing ours bodies are, and especially the brain. There is so much that the brain does without us noticing. On Thursday I visited our local physiotherapist for some help with exercises to rehabilitate my weak and lacking in proper control arm and leg. On Friday I did some (just some) of the exercises and wiped myself out. Such simple exercises but they overwhelmed me. The arm exercises were meant to be done with 1kg dumbbells but I only had 1.5kg one: not a good idea. I nearly passed out. On Saturday we went to Otorohanga to Greg and Maggie's place to help re-clad their garage: well, Mac helped and I stayed inside and rested. Except it wasn't restful. I thought sitting and writing up a bunch of stuff that has been neglected would be restful but also good exercise as writing is one of the things that I've been having to re-learn. Seems that learning is hard work too, and uses up a lot of energy. Suddenly I was feeling faint and dizzy and then, fearing another stroke, moved in to an anxiety attack. Turns out all that sitting around writing had been such hard work my blood sugar was too low! A large glass of cold water, a couple of crackers and cheese, and I was out to it for an hour, sleeping the sleep of the innocent. Who would have thought it?

As well as my WOTY (word of the year), 'fearlessness', I have adopted a mantra: plan as if I'll live forever, but live each day as if it's my last. But living is hard work! I am trying to find small pleasures. I made a little no-sew, no-glue book and am writing in it the things I want to do 'fearlessly', but it's more a matter of facing up to, and conquering, fears. Just making the book was scary as I wasn't sure I still had the cognitive and fine motor skills to do it - in some ways it's easier to just not try things and just pretend that I'm fine, that I'm just choosing not to do things. But that doesn't really work, does it? Anyway, I made the book, with a few folds not folded as well as they could be, but it works. As I said, I'm writing in things I want to do, then adding dated tags of things I actually DO. Small things so far, but it's a way of reminding myself that I am making progress, to try to ward off too many poor-me times.

Part of my 'plan as if you'll live forever' policy means I am putting as much effort as I can manage into looking after my health (which means learning a whole new heap of stuff about bodies and the brains that run them,) learning more interesting stuff (like how to make a no-sew, no-glue book, politics, new thinking in feminism....,) and, something I've never done before, starting a bucket list, even though many things on it are pretty small.

Monday, January 8, 2018

When you sit alone
facing death, or worse,
you are blessed
if you have people
to call on
to sit with you
and wait.
You are blessed
if you have people
who love you.
But ultimately,
you sit alone.

When you sit alone
facing death, or worse,
you are blessed,
by those who
love you,
but more so by
feeling love
and giving love,
unconditionally,
to others and yourself
Because ultimately,
you sit alone.

Saturday, December 16, 2017

Monday, 11 December, was a good day: a yoga class, coffee with the other yoga women, followed by an afternoon of hot, vigorous gardening - cleaning out my one ornamental garden. It was completely overgrown with weeds and out of control plants. I pulled out everything except some variegated flax, and a couple of others that will require the extractigator or possibly the tractor. Then I'll add a few wheelbarrows full of fresh topsoil and replant with something different.

However things changed after I finished at 5pm. In the morning I had had a couple of momentary incidents when my leg felt it might buckle, but it really was momentary. But 10 minutes after I came in from gardening the feeling returned but didn't go away. I rang my sister-in-law, Pat, and asked her to come and sit with me. Then I rang the NZ Health Line 0800 611 116, who said I needed to go to hospital, and rang for an ambulance. Apparently, my symptoms weren't bad enough to make me a priority: after 40 minutes the ambulance service rang to say they didn't have an ambulance free yet, and after another 50 minutes they rang with the same story just as Mac got home. So Mac told them he'd take me in. So much for all those decades of paying every year for St John membership!

However they were a little confused, and in a couple of cases, skeptical, because my only symptom was self-reported weakness in my right leg, and a little in my right arm. When they got me to push, pull and squeeze they couldn't feel any difference between my left and right sides. I kept saying that it was a sensation of giving way and lack of control, and I have since recognized it as the same sort of sensation as when a doctor tests your reflexes and you just can't stop than leg from jerking. But I could talk fine, and even walk fine, if somewhat slowly and nervously.

On Tuesday a CT scan showed nothing. An MIR scan on Wednesday morning was not as scary as I expected, but having to wait until Thursday lunchtime was nerve-wracking. And the result? Brain damage from a stroke. Akkk! The somewhat dismissive young male doctor looked very surprised. He was also obviously pissed off at my questions about treatment. Mate, I question everything! Especially when you have already made an incorrect statement about T2 diabetes! Then it was home. With a shower stool, and a handrail for Mac to install in the shower and a stop to have a cuppa with Steve, who had flown up and is staying with Rob, just a couple of minutes walk from the hospital. Then more stops for a walking stick from Life Unlimited (yeah, right) and to fill prescriptions.

Friday, lots of rest, while still putting in a determined effort to do as much for myself as I could: I put on and hung out washing, did dishes, walked on treadmill twice for 5 mins and got up to 3kph and 3.5kph. I showered myself, fed the cat, made kefir, made yogurt, made breakfast. It's amazingly hard work when you have to concentrate and make every move consciously intentional. Who would have dreamed that such ordinary achievements would bring such satisfaction?

Saturday - as much rest as I could. The doctor said I could go see Paul McCartney as planned. I wonder if he actually knew who Paul McCartney was and that at the concert at Mt Smart Stadium I would be one wobbly old woman in a crowd of 30,000 people. But I went, with Mac helping me and supporting me every step of the way. Steven drove us right to the gates, and picked us up afterwards and we got home just before 3am. There were lots of steps. It was very hard work. It was worth it. Every single dollar, every single step. 53 years after my mother said I was too young at 13 to go see the Beatles (she was right) and that I could go next time they came (she was wrong), I got to see Paul, who back at age 13 was my favourite Beatle.

I cried a lot. (I seem to be very emotionally fragile since this stroke.) But I had a lot of time when I forgot my woes. I sang along, forgetting that I might be singing out of tune as a side effect of the stroke (though Mac said this morning that I was totally in tune.) This is not my normal preferred music any more - I prefer small intimate venues and jazz - but Paul's music has been part of my life since before I was in my teens. I realised once again that I must not live my life in fear. Every one of us could die or have some awful, disabling thing happen tomorrow: it's just that I am aware of what my awful thing is likely to be. I must continue to live my life to the fullest I can, must live in the present moment.

Quite a few people I know choose a word for the year, not something I have ever done. But this year - or for a while anyway - I think I will adopt the word

FEARLESSNESS

Friday, November 24, 2017

A while ago, when I was out at a gathering of mainly young people in their early - mid 20s, I overheard a young person say, "our mothers never love us the way we want them to".

Is that true of everyone? I know I feel that. To the extent that I don't really feel my mother loved me at all - or at least, did her best not to be too attached to me, for reasons I understand as an adult. Despite that understanding, my own sense of being unloved remains to this day. She wasn't unkind most of the time, and, in fact, did lots of kind, good things for me, supported me through some hard times. But all the same, it felt to me that her approval was very conditional, and what friends, family and neighbours thought was her main concern. I remember when I announced I was moving out to go flatting, her response was, "but what will people think if you move out?" My father, on the other hand, looked sad but asked, "what do you need? How can we help?" I would have liked her to have told me nice things about myself, not just ways I could improve. I would liked to have been hugged. I would have liked her to have said she loved me.

I know I have loved my sons unconditionally always, and I think they know that now, but I also know that I have failed to be as kind and supportive of them as I, and they, I'm sure, would have liked.

I keep wondering, in what ways do my sons feel they would have liked me to love them? Then I wonder, do I really want to know, when it is far too late for me to change anything? Perhaps not.

Recently on Facebook, I have been witnessing several discussions about transgender issues. The talk around gender dysphoria has had me thinking about my own perception of what it means to be a real woman. Not in the context of the transgender discussion, not like that.

But as I read, I wondered, how does it work, to say, 'I feel like a woman'. What does that mean to me? Why have there been so many things about myself that have made me feel I wasn't a real / good / proper girl / woman? How can I have felt like that without ever considering what being a real woman meant to me? Why have I spent my life accepting, as real, negative judgments, not just from real, actual people, but from vague cultural suggestions, and then regurgitating them in self-flagellation? I realise that the first step in discovering what I think a real woman, a specific actual woman - me - is, is to look at past criticisms from others and from myself.

real girls don't even want to do woodwork and metalwork, girls like cooking and sewing

a woman stays a virgin until she gets married / a woman should share sex liberally because, you know, 'make love, not war' (you can tell finished school in 1968, started university in 1969, when the hippy revolution was in full flow in NZ)

only sailors and prostitutes have pierced ears and tattoos

a married woman should stay home / should make a success of a meaningful career

a woman should be a mother otherwise she is selfish; a mother should be an expert in everything from housework, to health care, to education, to gardening, to sewing, knitting, to .... but .......

a woman's children should be perfect and never make mistakes or get dirty or have autism or break a leg or like eating apple slices spread with marmite

a woman shouldn't 'let herself go' but

a woman shouldn't spend money on herself as long as her man, her children, her parents - anyone else, really, has needs or wants

a woman should always be emotionally available to anyone who needs them but....

a woman shouldn't burden others with her shit

a woman should wear age-appropriate clothing - especially old woman who should dress in beige and cover up as much skin as possible (is there even such a thing as age-appropriate clothing for men?)

an older woman should always wear a bra even if she finds them uncomfortable, especially when she has saggy breasts because basically, a woman should have large, perky breasts all her life, but if she fails at that, she should cover them well, so other people don't suffer revulsion

a woman should have a nice singing voice

a woman shouldn't speak or laugh loudly

a woman should be elegant or sexy or both but not slutty (what the fuck is slutty anyway?)

a woman should have head hair, eyelashes, eyebrows, maybe public hair if neatly trimmed, but otherwise be baby-smooth

Post-menopausal women should be especially careful to get rid of all those bristles that appear in random places

white / greying hair is not distinguished or attractive on a woman, it is aging and shows declining womanhood - but dying it unreal colours is absurd

a woman should support other women as long as they aren't (insert anything here.)

a woman shouldn't be uppity enough to put her writing / art / music / thoughts / self out in front of others unless it is as good as the best man's

a million other little and large shoulds and shouldn't - there's no order here, just a stream of things that poured out

a woman should feel guilty about everything she says or does or wants or is.....

And still, I identify as a woman. In spite of all my 'failures'.

I think my biggest failing is that I took on so many other people's stupid judgments and failed to do so so many things I wanted to, and to be out loud the woman I am.

I still don't know what I can do to be a real woman - other than just be.

About Me

After being a SAHM way back since I became pregnant with my eldest son in 1980, and homeschooling / unschooling all four of my boys, my youngest son started University in February 2009. Since then I have put my energy into our land. In 2010 I did a year-long modular Permaculture Design Certificate. In April 2011 I started a one year correspondence course in Apicultural Knowledge with Telford: A Division of Lincoln University in order to increase my knowledge of bees and beekeeping.
I live on 16 acres of land, of which about 11 acres is bush with a stream running through the middle. I live here with my husband, Mac.